Late to the party with this:
Nickelodeon said last fall that its ratings woes were temporary, but that doesn't look to be the case: This month, kids-TV rival the Disney Channel beat it for the first time in its average number of total daily viewers. ...
Of the top 10 most-watched cable networks in March, only one slipped more than Nick. And therein lies more bad news for Nick, because that network is its evening offshoot: Nick at Night fell 36 percent to 942,000 average daily viewers ...
Parents have long complained that Nick airs too many reruns of popular staples like "SpongeBob SquarePants," as the Disney Channel generates new original programming like "Jessie" and "Good Luck Charlie" to continue the success of hits like the recently departed "Wizards of Waverly Place."
Nick responded to the ratings woes in the fall by announcing plans to air up to 500 hours of new content in the near-term. ...
The Disney Channel was started in the early 1980s, when Ron Miller was Chairman of Diz Co. It started life as a shoe-string operation, with all kinds of low-rent programming. It long ago moved up to the major leagues.
Nickelodeon has been riding high for a long time, but it's never good to assume you can rest on your cushy status quo. While you're resting, you get trampled by the competition.
I've listened to Nick execs complain about upper management's choices: refusing to greenlight Adventure Time, shutting down Robot & Monster when it was humming along, betting heavily on CG shows when CG shows are more costly and get no better ratings with the junior set than their less expensive, hand-drawn brethren.
But ratings go down, ratings go up. A few years ago, Cartoon Network's management was wondering what it could do to pull their cable network out of the dunk tank, and now CN is flying high. The ratings game is cyclical. Today's winners become tomorrow's winners losers. Unfortunately for Nick, tomorrow is here.
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24 comments:
Steve,
Please, please get the name of our show right.
"Robot & Monster".
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robot-and-Monster/151138821613437
It's a small point, but please respect the work that we have done.
"ROM" Miller?
Robots and Monsters wasn't doing well because it wasn't very good. Most of their shows are sub par, although far better than anything on Disney or Cartoon Network.
Barring some sort of miracle, Nickelodeon's best years are behind them.
They've become far too corporate to allow anything good on their network.
Which is a shame because they used to be the maverick network that proved that creator-driven material with minimal executive interference was the way to make shows with staying power.
Cartoon Network is in danger of this as well.
They never learn.
" Today's winners become tomorrow's winners"
Typo?
Also Nick for a while wasn't taking pitches and the only writing samples they wanted to see were specs for Dexter (the serial killer show not the CN show)
And to get through the Frederator door you had to pitch a board just to be considered.
It's no wonder they're doing this hodgepodge fast track shorts program.
While you may describe the early Disney Channel as "a shoe-string operation, with all kinds of low-rent programming", it was a far classier site than it is today. Remember, it started out as a pay-channel and was originally meant to be a venue for showcasing Disney's legacy of films, beloved series like "The Wonderful World of Disney" and "Zorro", as well as providing revenue to develop some new made-for-TV movies, most of which were beautifully written with the type of high production values you'd expect from Disney. Rounding out the schedule were MGM musicals and the vintage "George Burns' Show", among other classic entertainment. The Disney Channel was targeted not just to kids but to the whole family, back in the days when families still gathered around the TV to watch programs together.
Alas, those days are long gone, and The Disney Channel today is a mess, with nothing but live-action kiddie sitcoms, all of which seem to revolve around smart-ass tweens at school. The shows are practically indistinguishable from each other, yet apparently all of this mindless drivel has become a huge money-making success for Disney. Whereas Ron Miller tried to provide classy and timeless entertainment on a commercial-free outlet to be enjoyed by all, today's Disney Channel is content to sell toys and junk food to all the crap-loving kiddies packaged within mindless drivel of no lasting value. Thanks but no thanks!
Yeah, and what does Nick do to remedy its ills?
It picks up 4 pilots from that HACK Butch Hartman, who turned his own once-charming and funny cartoon, The Fairly Odd Parents, into an unwatchable screaming mess.
Why, Nick? His Tuff Puppy faded fast. What is it about the guy that makes you hope he'll improve and catch lightning in a bottle again?
Butch needs to watch Phineas and Ferb and learn how character comedy is really done. And how not to make your characters hateful. Jeez, some people - and networks - never learn...
Pete--that is precisely correct. Same goes for much of the parks as well. Disney was NEVER about "children's entertainment." It was always about FAMILY entertainment. What adult watches hannah montana with their kids and GENUINELY enjoys it?
All the disney channel does now is sell junk to tween girls.
jester says: Dear nickelodeon, bring back your old shows and cut the crap on all those dumb live action series that have same plot (fame,popularity,relationship
,singing). I doubt they'll become actors\singers.
Nick turned down Adventure Time?! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
All the disney channel does now is sell junk to tween girls.
Ah, but it is INCREDIBLY successful teen junk.
Also, Pete leaves out the time when the Disney Channel was literally nothing but Boy Meets World, Growing Pains and Brotherly Love reruns. That was a dark, dark time.
You clearly all forget as usual that the Disney Channel, while you might not like the content IS NOT FOR YOU. Its for kids and I'm betting there isn't one or you under 30 here. Disney Channel is very successful in my home and in most homes with girls. Nickelodeon is failing because they make crappy shows and theyve let feature people try to make television and they clearly bad at it. Butch Hartman has become soft and unfunny, fat and happy living off past successes. Its sad too because he was once a nice guy. Now hes a conceited meglomaniac surrounded by Yes Men who wont tell him he's lost his Eye of the Tiger. And Nick now is forced to let him rule because the development executives there have the intellectual capacity of a wet soapdish. Aside from Sponge Bob, Butch gave their only true success. What they should do is let Fred Seibert run the network. He's given us many successful shows, and while you might not like having to actually do any work to sell a show, making people do a storyboard narrows down the lazy fools who "have a show about a funny guy who does funny things." and don't know how to actually make people laugh.
It's laughable how when girls are given leeway in entertainment, so many expresses deep hatred. I noticed that nobody has anything bitter to say regarding Cartoon Network and its plethora of boy-related garbage.
As far as I'm care, Disney can market to tween girls as much as they want, as it seems like their film division is doing their best to segregate girl audiences (John Carter, Tron, wreck it ralph, etc.).
Please, please get the name of our show right.
"Robot & Monster".
It's a small point, but please respect the work that we have done.
Quite right.
Apologies, with corrections.
Nick turned down Adventure Time?! ...
Nick financed the pilot. And after internal discussion, declined to make it a series and put it into turnaround.
Cartoon Network picked it up and made it a hit.
I'm informed that Nickelodeon doesn't plan to make that mistake twice.
They will. They are a conglomerate, full of retards. Every media network is.
The amount of name calling in the comments is a bit disheartening. As for the topic at hand - there is always a cycle. The question is will each company survive their respective downturns? We'll have to wait and see. For the sake of working artists, I certainly hope so. (And really, isn't that what we should all be supporting?)
Steve -
Thanks for the correction.
We on R&M took/take great pride in the show.
^ I'm sorry Nick shuttered production before episodes aired, but maybe they'll bring it back after the ratings come in.
"Parents have long complained that Nick airs too many reruns of popular staples like "SpongeBob SquarePants," as the Disney Channel generates new original programming like "Jessie" and "Good Luck Charlie" to continue the success of hits like the recently departed "Wizards of Waverly Place.""
Exactly. Why can't Nick wrap their thick skulls around this.
"But ratings go down, ratings go up. A few years ago, Cartoon Network's management was wondering what it could do to pull their cable network out of the dunk tank, and now CN is flying high."
That wasn't magical. CN actually started to show a VARIETY cartoons that people LIKE.
TAKE THE HINT NICK.
The Nick executives are so woefully out of touch with audiences it would be sad if it weren't for the fact that they're all grossly overpaid former secretaries.
No what's most disheartening is that we have to all post as anonymous when we live in a land that pretends to protect us with freedom of speech. Something no one has in this day and age thanks to to internet. One heartfelt or frustrated post or comment can literally destroy an entire career in one minute. When did we turn into a country which will not allow the ability to make a mistake? And yes I too will post as Anonymous because I've already tasted the bite of the blacklisting which does not exist.
^^ In what fictitious dreamword you were EVER allowed to publicly bitch about your employer without the threat of it getting back around to them and being canned? That's existed long before the internet. Free speech doesnt protest you from criticism or backlash.
*protect*
"It's laughable how when girls are given leeway in entertainment, so many expresses deep hatred. I noticed that nobody has anything bitter to say regarding Cartoon Network and its plethora of boy-related garbage."
Heh. With the success "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" is having (not to mention all the publicity), you'd think there would be more push for cartoons centered on girls.
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